Monday, May 20, 2013

Phone App Helps Boost Mood

My opinion:
While I believe this invention may provide some emotional support for patients,
I do not think it is effective at solving major chemical imbalances.
Frankly, I'm not sure if this app should even be called a "placebo
effect." In general, patients may view the placebo effect negatively
and not take the activity very seriously, rendering it useless. However,
perhaps it can leave the pill in, as many interpret the pill to have healing
powers, even though it isn't real. I think this program is more like a
social therapy - it basically encourages the user to look at his or her life in
a more positive manner. Again, though this
may work for the occasional blues, this can't fix clinical depression, and I
hope its users don't believe that it will. Should there be some kind of
disclaimer at the beginning to prevent this? Anything else that would
improve the app? Feel free to comment.

This App Will Make You Feel Better, Using No Medicine At All

Instead,
it uses the power of your own positive thinking to create a placebo
effect--which works even if you know it’s happening.

Traditionally, researchers have thought of "placebo effects"
as something phony. Placebos are drug study controls, not the real
treatment. And, the idea of sugar pills as effective medicine was almost
an affront to science.
Recently, though, attitudes have changed. Amid evidence that placebo effects are strengthening, researchers
have started looking at the phenomenon as something more positive.
They’ve shown the experience can produce physiological effects, and can
even be beneficial when patients know what’s going on.

Daniel Jacobs also wants to use placebos for good. His new app, which he’s crowd-funding on Indiegogo,
is an attempt to take the placebo out of the doctor’s office and into
your home. He hopes it will make people feel better, and contribute
further to placebo research.
You start by setting a goal: say, more joy or love in your life.
Then, you choose someone to give you the placebo (maybe a friend or
family member), what you want it to be (a pill, say), and where you want
to take it (maybe a forest where you go running with a friend). You
then "take" the placebo whenever you want to, following a pre-set ritual
built into the app.
The point is to replicate what’s important about the placebo effect, which isn’t the pill itself, but the experience.